In this lively interdisciplinary exploration of culture and society in early 19th-century France, illustrated with prints and paintings of the day, art historian Patricia Mainardi focuses on what was considered a major social problem of the time: adultery. As expectations about marriage were changing along with post-Revolutionary attitudes about duty versus happiness, the problems of husbands, wives, and lovers became a major theme in theater, literature, and art. Mainardi argues that modern bourgeois family values emerged from such legal, social, and cultural debates, and shows how art both influences and is influenced by social change.

"Mainardi's investigation affects not only our interpretation of much of the visual culture of 19th-century France, but requires too that we rethink the journalism, the literature, the poetry, and the theater."—Abigail Solomon-Godeau